Why do so many people in the military have useless degrees?

A college education, like anything in life, is what you make of it.
Whether it is a "degree mill" or sitting in a classroom at a 150 year old campus, you can walk away still writing at a 6th grade level, or you can develop the critical thinking and analytical skills that will make you better in any kind of job.
On average, only about 27% of college grads work in their field of study.
https://www.newyorkfed.org/medialibrary/media/research/staff_reports/sr587.pdf

That varies by field, of course, over 50% for elementary ed and accounting, close to 0% for "liberal arts", etc.
The private sector, much like the military, has jobs where a college degree (specific field or any field) is required, and jobs where the degree is not required but makes you more competitive.
And since 83% of those in the military today will not stay in for 20 years and will need a career, (and many that do collect retirement will need a second career) that "degree in anything" along with military experience usually results in a well-rounded individual with a higher chance of success in that next job.

Not so much as useless degrees as focused. Why does an Infantry Officer need an electrical engineering degree - counter-terrorism would likely be more useful. Using their psychology degree to better understand people would probably have benefits.
I took two years of Fire/Rescue/EMS/Disaster-Management technical courses both inhouse, online, diagnostic-tested, benchmark tested and finally got my degree after 5 years.
They all helped me organize myself and plan for future operations better in my active military days. It was a wider view of what I did on a day to day basis.

I got my degrees in the Military, Associate of Arts in general studies to knock out the Gen Ed. requirements, & a Bachelors of Science in Accounting. I did complete an MBA later on as a personal goal.

My degrees were a means to an end. They show that I can complete something and have a decent amount of education - they don't make me a better person or worker. My personal traits and critical thinking skills do that did. I don't consider an accounting degree a useless degree BUT I've never worked in accounting and really don't know much about it now - in that respect I would be useless in the accounting field. Instead, I work in IT, which I don't have a formal education in but know a lot more about.

I hire IT professionals, and other members of a project team. Many of my positions require a degree to be competitive - I honestly don't care what it is in, where it's from or what their GPA was. Once they're a professional their work experience is what matters to me. Some times an online degree is all that person can get - its hard to go to class on top of a full days work. If they still managed it then I have respect for them and their accomplishments.

If you believe these other degrees are useless then more power to you, but does it really matter to you what others chose to study? My son is in ROTC now, he knows he's going to go active duty when he graduates so he's doing a degree in what he enjoys as it's a means to an end. Yes, he'll have an Electrical Engineering degree but I doubt he'll ever actually work in the field. What he NEEDS is a bachelors so he can commission.

English is not a useless degree. English majors read. A lot. And I’m doing so, they learn to critically analyze and communicate. Those are not useless skills in the military. On the contrary, they’re very important. COL Harris made some great points about writing in the military. Those skills are really applicable to any field.

As for WMD? Now that the counter-WMD belongs to SOF, I’ve gotten a chance to learn a lot more about this and it is waaaaay more complicated than I ever thought. Explaining that is beyond the scope of this forum, but I do think it’s absolutely critical to have experts that focus on this and only this, since it’s one of those fields that has a lot of players involved, but very little integration, cooperation and overall command and control up until recently. I don’t see this as a useless field either.

There are some useless degrees out there...I don't understand why a pilot has a degree in nuclear physics etc. I do understand the degrees in WMD, counter terrorism, military studies etc...they do come in handy. But you are right, the military most times want a degree to see if yo are disciplined enough to have critical thinking skills for education that leads to critical thinking skills on the battlefield.

This issue you have brought up is more about completing a task. It shows an individual can win. A four year degree can help in several areas.
Communication on a subject, or subjects has helped me in the past.
Armies may travel on their stomachs. But without proper communication, they are divided. Divided we fall.
Have a great day SGT.

For many people a degree was a ticket to a commission. That was my situation. I knew I wanted to be an AF officer so I took ROTC and a history and political science major. Stuff I liked and was good at. Later on the AF made it very clear that having a Master's Degree would help a captain make major. Choices from on-base university extensions were limited, so I took counseling and human resource management. It worked. I was promoted to major and selected for a regular commission. The two schools I went to for my MA artfully crafted their tuition to stay within the rate the GI bill paid. Degree mill? Not exactly. We did have to show up for most classes and write a few papers.

Many classes leading to degrees are offered offered by creditable institutions both on base and on line. In my case, I was required to have a degree for promotion past Captain and attended on base classes offered by Southern Illinois University.
What is the value of the degree? It is another positive on your record as you compete for promotion and something civilian employers still look for as an indication of self discipline. In my experience, few liberal arts degrees directly apply to civilian or military positions

Sgt,

No degree is useless. One thing I have learned is that even an online degree is valuable. Take it from a mere specialist who in the civilian world has two Masters; a MBA and a Masters in Cyber Security, and a DBA candidate in Business Intelligence. While I learned many concepts and theories, the most valuable lesson I learned was time management (Most of my degrees were online from ERAU). Time management was a fundamental skill I learned in online schooling, going through JCAC now (the hardest schooling I have been through) I learned how valuable online schooling was for me. JCAC is hard, but not because of the content. JCAC is challenging because of the amount of material covered in such a short period of time. My peers are one of the smartest kids I have met, but failed because of not properly managing their time. I strongly believe the Army; in this case, require some sort of time management course prerequisite prior to JCAC to minimize the drop out rate. My point here is that time management attained through college or some sort of training is valuable for success. A lot of the knowledge attained faded, but time management stuck. Reading the other comments, I agree with most. It does not matter what degree you have, but the discipline learned while attending. Just two cents from a humble Specialist, who joined to serve his country and contribute in any way possible. God speed.

SPC Santos

The military doesnt care what degree people hold because it is all OJT. The military will train and certifiy you on whatever they want you to do. There are a lot of people in the civilian market that don't use their degrees either. Met one guy with an electrical engineer degree, he sold elevators. Didn't have anything to do with the engineering of said elevators, je obpy taled with customers and passed soecs to the conpany engineers.